Majalla 28 is a literary magazine out of Gaza co-producing an issue with ArabLit. We talk about the work by co-editors Mahmoud al-Shaer and Mohamed al-Zaqzouq and read excerpts from that issue. After that, we talk about a particular kind of Palestinian literature – by writers serving life sentences.

Find out more about the Gaza issue at arablit.org

More writing by Heba Al-Agha, translated by Julia Choucair Vizoso, is also available at arablit.org

You can read more about the late author Walid Daqqa, who died in an Israeli prison, at Jadaliyya

Palestinian prisoner Nasser Abu Srour’s The Wall, translated by Luke Leafgren, is out now from Other Press

A Mask, the Colour of the Sky, by Palestinian writer Basim Khandaqji, won this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Khandaqji is serving three consecutive life sentences; his novel is forthcoming in English translation from Europa Editions.

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Ghassan Kanafani is best known for his famous novellas, but he was many things besides a talented writer: a prolific journalist, an insightful critic and editor, a heterodox Marxist, a spokesman for the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He wrote and lived like he had no time to waste (which turned out to be true: he was assassinated in an Israeli car bombing at the age of 36). He remains one of the most respected and beloved of Arab icons, but his non-fiction work is less known than it should be. In 1970 he wrote a book of historical analysis: The Revolution of 1936-1939 in Palestine. Its translator, historian Hazem Jumjam, joined us for a conversation about this book on a failed revolution and everything we can still learn from it today.

Hazem Jamjoum’s translation of Kanafani’s The Revolution of 1936–1939 in Palestine is available from 1804 Books.

Mahmoud Najib’s translation of Kanafani’s On Zionist Literature is available from Ebb Books.

Kanafani’s complete works in Arabic are available from Rimal Books.

Kanafani’s Men in the Sun was adapted to film as The Dupes (1972).

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This episode features writing from and about Gaza, and explores the imperative to write, between hope and hopelessness, at a time when words both seem to count enormously and to not be enough.

Show Notes

This episode’s cover art is by Chema Peral @chema_peral

Letter from Gaza by Ghassan Kanafani was written in 1956.

Mahmoud Darwish’s Silence for the Sake of Gaza is part of his 1973 collection Journal of an Ordinary Grief.

The poet Mosab Abu Toha has written about his arrest and his family’s voyage out of Gaza

Atef Abu Seif’s “Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide” is forthcoming from Comma Press

Fady Jouda’s poetry collection [...] is forthcoming from Milkweed Press

You can read poetry in translation by Salim al-Naffar and Hiba Abu Nada, both killed under Israeli bombardment, at ArabLit. Other magazines that have been translating and sharing Palestinian poetry include Mizna, Fikra, LitHub, The Baffler, and Protean magazine.

The book that was removed from the curriculum in Newark is the book Sonia Nimr co-wrote with Elizabeth Laird, A Little Piece of Ground.

Ghassan Hages’ essay “Gaza and the Coming Age of the Warrior” asks: “Is it ethical to write something ‘interesting’ about a massacre as the massacre is unfolding?”

Andrea Long Chu’s essay “The Free Speech Debate is a Trap” calls for “fighting with words.”

At the end of the episode, Basman Eldirawi reads his poem “Santa” in honor of Refaat Alareer, an educator and poet who was killed on December 7.

#ReadforRefaat is part of a week of action being called for by the Publishers for Palestine collective.

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